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48
Seeing the dangers of dirt in food, the general exposure of food,
unprotected by any covering from the dust of the streets, is a matter
which will be remedied as soon as the general public demand food
which has not been contaminated with horse-droppings and injurious
organisms (street-dust), and the retailer recognises how seriously this
exposure impairs the keeping powers of Milk, Meat, Fish, and Fruit.
Health considerations also demand that this failure to protect our
food from dirt should not continue.
During the past year the wholesomeness of preserved meats
has been much discussed in this country, and although one read
and heard on all sides of the grossest exaggeration of the
facts in connection with the dangers of canned meat, etc., the
exposure of unsatisfactory American methods has resulted in greater
care in the selection of suitable meat and in its manipulation, not
only in America but in this and other countries. I have sampled
some of the canned material sold in Stoke Newington, and I have
found but little more to take exception to than the use of chemical
preservatives in these preparations.
I inspected the Chicago slaughter-houses some fifteen years
ago, and was greatly impressed with the overwhelming dimensions
of the undertaking and the way in which the enormous amount of
work was rushed through. At that time I saw little evidence of
anything in the nature of a satisfactory provision for guarding the
public from the risk of consuming diseased meat.
In Stoke Newington a vigilant eye is kept upon the food
supplied in the Borough. Upon one evening a week, and generally
on a Saturday, one inspector is told off exclusively to inspect the foodstuffs
exposed for sale at the various shops and stalls. Of course,
this inspection is carried out more or less every day, but it has been
thought desirable to supplement the day by an evening inspection,
lest any dishonest tradesman, believing that he would be free from
risk then, might offer unsound food for sale. There is a small
amount of unwholesome food seized in Stoke Newington, including,